Social Media was fun and exciting, till it wasn’t anymore. I realize I am not really saying anything new here, but wanted to explain my own experience with social media as I feel it is a vital part to my story of rediscovering my amazing, creative GENIUS. Now let me start by saying that I know A LOT of people who use social media in the most beautiful way. They use it to spread their own unique message of love and through media they have helped so many people to view the world differently and in a more positive/reflective way. I honor those individuals and I am sure they have had their own personal battles with social media that comes with the territory. I considered myself to be one of those people, but still found myself falling victim to behaviors that if I am honest with myself, am ashamed of. For me, being as sensitive/empathic as I am in my daily existence, I realized two things were happening while mindlessly scrolling Facebook or instagram. One was that I was unintentional viewing, so I wasn’t guarded intuitively like I normally would be in public and social settings; so I was absorbing ALL the emotions that were happening on my feed by all these individuals, but also tapping into the collective’s emotional state, which honestly right now with everything going on in the world is rather intense. It left me drained and would give me great anxiety, why it took me so long to understand this, is beyond me; however it shows just how addictive it can be.
The second thing I realized I was falling victim to is comparison. I consider myself to be a supportive friend who genuinely loves to see my friends and colleagues succeed. I love to see pictures of their beautiful families, travels, artwork and anything else they may be up to. However even being super positive and supportive on social media, I still found myself comparing my life to EVERYONE else’s; honestly, its practically impossible not to for any of us and in a lot ways it is what fuels us to make the changes we need/want to in our lives, so there is that, but when we are taking in so much information about others choices, we lose sight of what it is we really want and what is truly aligned for our souls purpose.
For someone who has very intentionally created a wonderful life for myself and my family, and has done a lot of work around intuition and self awareness; My use of social media was causing me to feel lost, confused and at times alone. I know for sure that many others understand this very well. Comparing yourself to others is not only absolutely exhausting it is insanely overwhelming; because one person can’t possibly be ALL the things and be doing ALL the things, nor should they. Sure it’s great to pop your bubble and see whats out there in the world so you can broaden your horizon and have an understanding of life outside of yours; but social media is that concept on steroids, not to mention everyone is putting their best selves out there, so no one is seeing the “hard” side of life or even the daily grind.
I found when I deleted Facebook and drastically cut down my use of Instagram, that my own love for my life and what I was creating was able to be first and for most. I was no longer unintentionally placing any of my sacred energy on other people, their lives and their creative endeavors. It’s what has allowed the space for me to finally convene with my genius and to unabashedly let her out to play.
Now I still have an instagram account, that I rarely find myself on and am still in debate about whether to delete it all together or to keep it as a place to stay in touch with people I love, store my most sacred photographs and to sell my pottery (social media certainly has its positives). All can be done in other places and in other ways though; however this is the place I find myself and I believe many others are finding themselves. So my journey with social media isn’t over yet.
We see how beneficial social media is, but also see how destructive it has become. So finding the balance and whats right for each individual is best. I here a lot of talk about being very intentional about our use and treating it as a sacred space, which I believe is very good advice. However, I consider myself an intentional and intuitive individual who has worked very hard on boundaries and still find all that progress get lost on social media. As we evolve along side technology we will be facing off with a lot of these questions and observations as to what is healthy and what is not.
All I know for sure is that the simpler things are the better things feel. When we over complicate, over think, over work ourselves we over indulge in addictive behavior…period. Cutting out/down on social media helped me to simplify my thoughts, which ultimately helped me simplify my life and when things became more simple, they became more easy, and when they became more easy, I was able to relax and align and in that space I have been able to be present and presence is key for our genius to exist.
